Last month, my mom and I had dinner at this fancy schmacy Italian restaurant, Ponte Vecchio, which is located in Niagara Falls in the Fallsview Casino. The atmosphere was romantic and the light fixtures were so pretty that I just had to take pictures of it. Our server was so genuine and accommodating all night that I really do have to commend her services. She made sure that every course of food was timed perfectly; she waited until we finished our last bite on the dish before politely asking if we were done with the dish and taking it and the utensils away before coming back with clean utensils before the next dish arrived. I really enjoyed the great service here!
We chose a lot of food; there was so much that we couldn’t finish everything since the portions were fairly substantial.
We started off with some hot lemon water and bread. The loaf of bread came in a hot black pan and was in the shape of a flower petal. It was so pretty! When you pulled apart a “petal”, the piece was moist and fluffy with a touch of butter. It was a pretty great tasting bread!
I need to work on my Italian food terms more because I chose the Frittura Mista based on the fact that the description contained lots of seafood but I wasn’t aware that “frittura” meant that the whole dish would be fried! The dish was gigantic for an appetizer and contained numerous fried shrimps, scallops, meaty lake perch, tiny swirls of calamari, and yummy artichokes served with a spicy chili aioli (that wasn’t very spicy). I love artichokes and was very pleased that this dish came with lots of them in the seafood mix. After this, we were both a little full already! Uh oh….
The reason why I was a little concerned for my stomach space was that we had also ordered an appetizer portion of the Casarecce Bolognese which was Casarecce pasta (narrow, twisted shape and the first time I’ve had this type of pasta) with American Wagyu beef with cabernet wine, porcini mushrooms, and plum tomatoes. Luckily, we tried the appetizer version so it wasn’t that much to share. The pasta was pretty good and I loved the porcini mushrooms! There wasn’t a ton of Wagyu beef in it actually.

Lamb. $49
-braised shank & grilled lamb chop, bronte pistachio & parmesan crusted, sauteed forest mushrooms, pachino tomatoes & argula
From the grill, we ordered the lamb as our main course to share. There were two pieces, a braised shank and a grilled lamb chop that was bronte pistachio and parmesan crusted. By this point, we were SO full that I could only eat a couple of bites to taste everything and then let the plate lie. I still prefer grilled lamb racks since the flavors are more intense and flavourful. The braised shank was good and tender but I didn’t absolutely love it (also partly due to the fact that I was so full to eat anything else).
Even though I wanted to try their dessert, there was no room in our stomachs and even our server joked about that, haha. She served us a small plate of complimentary sweets that reminded me of pavlova pieces. They were pretty good.
I would definitely return to this restaurant. I loved the service and cozy atmosphere as well as the food. 🙂
Perch,Calamari,Shrimp,Scallop,Artichokes,Spicy chili aioli! all of my favorites in one fried plate!
The flintstones comes to mind when I see that lamb shank, wow that is huge :O
Aw, Andy, we share so many of the same tastes in food! Hehe, I absolutely love artichokes! 😀
Haha, yep, it was huge! We couldn’t finish it. :O
So if i ever get to try the place, I shall have to order the lamb first eh 😀 lol
Haha, yes, so that you can enough room in your stomach to finish the dish! However, I like grilled rack of lamb better than this shank that I had… so it depends on your preference of lamb too! 🙂
I like lamb gamey and tender, very few places i know make it just right 😊
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